Recently in Mixed Bag Category

This year, I don't mind too much that the stores have decorated for the holidays two weeks before Thanksgiving.

I love that KOST has kicked off its holiday music 24/7.

I'm ready to decorate the outside of the house this weekend (hoping Hubby will find time to bring all the Christmas stuff down from the garage eaves!) And I've printed out our Christmas gift list (counting family, friends, the mailman, teachers etc. the list has grown to three pages!) Our family celebrates three new babies this year, with one more due Dec. 8. (What recession?!!!)

Take this as you will. It's my story and it really happened. I offer no explanations, just the narration. And, by the way, happy hauntings!

Are you staying in the Valley today if you had a choice?

My neighbors and his boys are staying in but we've evacuated to my in-laws for today at least. The smoke was just too much for me. I felt sorry for anyone out in the smoky streets this morning, but of course everyone has to go about their business: waiting for the bus, walking their dog.

Hubby opened the windows last night when the skies were still clear, but by midnight, smoke was wafting around the house already. It only got worse as the morning approached so we packed up the kiddos and headed due south. I would not have been able to stand the smoke for the whole day and I worry about the boys breathing that for such a long time too. So now we're raiding Grandma's fridge, enjoying the AC and hunkering down, hoping to get a call from our neighbor with the all clear signal.

How about you?

Breathe easy,

"Witness the emotional struggles, physical complications and financial burdens of this single mother of 14 ... including the private moments and reactions of Suleman's family, as well as Suleman's own feelings, doubts and fears."

That's how Fox is teasing its special on Octomom Nadya Suleman, set to air on primetime tomorrow, Aug. 19.

Will the promise of never before seen footage, etc. make us miss our guilty pleasure, Wipeout? (Oh, we LOVE that show!)

My father died 5,111 days ago today.

            He had been sick for a year, from what his fellow doctors first diagnosed as brain cancer which was actually lung cancer that had metastasized to his brain. When he heard the disease was in his head, he was actually relieved.

            "It's not lung cancer," he reported with some glee, because as a lifelong Winston smoker he wanted to be able to say all those cigarettes didn't hurt him one bit. Life is funny that way.

           

Yesterday's accident on the 210 certainly made our Friday challenging. Lots of parents were late to work (even those who left the house at 6:15 a.m.!) and my usual 15-minute drive from Arcadia to Duarte took 45 minutes. After school, our trek took over an hour.

Parents from Firstborn Son's school encountered long commutes from Alhambra to Pasadena.

It was interesting to see how everyone reacts to traffic snarls. I had to stay cool and entertain the kiddos. (We had a blast trying to see who would win a race, us in our car or a little ol' lady walking the trail along Royal Oaks Drive in Duarte. Grandma won.)

Other drivers couldn't stand waiting in line and made U-turns to whatever alternate route they could think of. Others (even moms in minivans, shame on you!) forgot all about courtesy and cut off other drivers or made illegal turns and stops. Most San Gabriel Valley drivers, thank goodness, remembered their driving manners: waiting their turn, not blocking intersections, and saying thank you when we let them in our lane.

Yesterday was a challenge and a major complication, for sure. But we got to go home and enjoy the beginning of our weekend. I think about the two people who left home before dawn on Friday and don't get to do that.

I'll take traffic snarls anyday.

I sympathize with the Muslim family that was kicked out of a AirTran flight in Washington after some passengers reported a suspicious conversation among family members. I applaud that family after hearing interviews with them, that they understood why the suspicion would be there if they had mentioned the words "bomb" or "explosive" and they praised the FBI for their professional treatment.

These are the times we live in.

My sister and I submitted our applications for citizenship at the same time almost two years ago. She received appointments for her fingerprinting, interview and oath-taking within the year. She's an American citizen now. I, meanwhile, am waiting.

Last week, I received a letter from the INS saying they have to retake my fingerprints since it had expired, having been taken 15 months ago. When I came in to the El Monte office to get that done, the consul told me the reason my application was taking so long was because of my name. Not my last name, mind you. But my first: Anissa, which is Arabic for "friendly girl."

The FBI had to clear me first and that was what was taking awhile.

I don't mind this one bit. Please be safe and thorough.

These are the times we live in.

Maybe I've been having too many glasses of Bailey's, but boy am I tired!

Tired but happy, despite the flurry of Christmas activities: classroom parties, office parties, Cub Scouts gift exchange, the Monrovia Christmas parade, more parties, ooh! shopping, then Christmas Eve in San Diego and Christmas Day at my in-laws.

The boys made out like bandits: it seems my 6-year-old very sweetly told most relatives what he really wanted for Christmas (namely, games for his DS game and anything Star Wars Clone Wars). My 3-year-old wanted what his brother got.

Hubby got a new pair of chinos and some sweats (yeah, not romantic, but very wifely-practical!)

Well, with the Michael Phelps saga done, I thought the whole family would be able to sleep earlier than midnight, but the Olympics is truly keeping us up! The boys enjoy watching most of the sports, anything with water being a major draw, and they loved the gymnastics competition. Of course, we don't miss anything about Kobe and the Redeem Team, and I am right there preaching about attitude and good sportsmanship and how hard the athletes work to get to this one day of competition.

On opening night, we allowed the boys to stay up and watch and we were wowed as well as anyone. One world, one dream, indeed! Wonder Boy's comment at the end of it all? "What a wonderful world!" like a mini-Louis Armstrong!

Last night, we watched the interview Bob Costas did with Michael Phelps and his mom, who, it turns out, is a principal back in Baltimore, Md. She was also a single mom with three kids who her son proudly says, lives her passion (teaching and changing childrens' lives.) That's the example he points out as a major factor in his success.

After the "aww" moment, I turned to my boys on the couch and asked, "Boys, what sport are YOU going to compete in in the Olympics?"

"What sport do you want me to join, Mama?" Joseph blithely replied.

Ahh, would that it was all so easy! But I did resolve to be truly conscious of what kind of example I am setting for my kids: when I grumble about housework, will they connect work to drudgery and not something noble? When I complain about the drivers on the road, or raise my voice to them when I'm tired, will they do the same when they're grown-up? And do they see me doing things I love? (Reading, scrapbooking, cherishing family?)

Debbie Phelps said it was hard to see her gangly, awkward son get teased at school for his big ears or to hear his teachers tell her his ADHD will get in the way of his success. Still, they found a way to channel his energy into something positive. (But I noticed she still remembers the bullies and tormentors of her only boy! I think I will be a fiercely protective!) D

Debbie also underlines the stress and nerves every parent feels when they watch their kids compete or do anything, really, where they can get hurt (physically or emotionally).

My sons don't have to win an Olympic medal for me to be proud of them. (I don''t think their Asian genes will allow them entrance into the NBA and the U.S. Olympic basketball team!) But I hope, hope, hope we will enjoy the same, easy, loving relationship Debbie Phelps has fostered with her son. And I pray that at 23, my boys will be as optimistic, hard-working, and humble as Phelps.

I'll always be on the sidelines cheering.

Firstborn Son is thrilled to have survived the first earthquake he remembers. (He slept through the two other times.)

We were on the carousel at Westfield Santa Anita and had just gone round once when the lights flickered, the merry-go-round shuddered and I actually saw the display window of Urban Street on the second floor of the mall bulge out, once, before the shaking stopped.

I got both boys and my niece off the ride and met a shaken carousel operator, who, despite being totally unnerved by the experience, kindly told us to come back later to finish our ride. Then I almost bumped strollers with another mom who was smilingly reassuring her little ones that all was well.

Was it? I had a moment of panic when I realized I didn't know what to do at a crowded place during an earthquake.

Father's Day is an uncomplicated affair at our house. We have Hubby, the young dad, to present ties, DVDs and power tools to. There's my father-in-law to honor too, usually with homemade cards, fishing gear and power tools. My own dad, I tell my boys, is in heaven. To them he's a picture in a shadowbox, a distinguished-looking, mustachioed guy with his hand to his chin, or a name on a gravestone.

"Grandpa in the grass," my youngest once called him.

Fathers. Even today I have to cry.

We were running late, headed home on the 605 after a visit to Grandma and Grandpa's in La Mirada. Firstborn had school tomorrow, and Hubby was planning to put in a 10-hour day too, so we would have been zipping on the carpool or fast lane of the 605, a trip we've taken with our two boys hundreds of times.

But my husband was tired, so he decided to stay on the No. 2 lane and drive a leisurely 70 or so. There wasn't much traffic, thank goodness, or else we'd be on the carpool.

We never saw him coming.

There was the guy in a Walnut car shop who convinced me I needed a new car battery. (He even showed me some printout from a little computer.) Turns out I DIDN'T need the $100+ item. (Our truck was barely two years old!)

Then there are the guys who insist I needed a new filter, some of this, more of that, and while some of the repairs are legit, the prices certainly aren't.

I'd come to expect getting gouged on car repairs because I am female, and more to the point, know next to nothing about cars. I also have a healthy horror about being stuck on the side of the road somewhere, so yeah, draw the bullseye target on my forehead already.

But no more. I have found an honest mechanic, and if you promise not to get in front of me when I'm in there with my car, I will tell you who he is.

If I don't get enough sleep, I am cranky, sallow-looking, basically ineffective and generally no fun to be around. Yet it is 2:26 a.m. and I'm still awake.

It was the siren call of Isabel Allende. I told myself I shouldn't pick up her latest, "The Sum of Our Days," comforted myself with the promise that I would read "just a chapter or two," and even after Hubby pointed out that it was midnight and I would have to wake up at 6 a.m. to get firstborn son off to school and that I had promised Mom I would drive her to her colonoscopy appointment, I still said, "Just 10 more minutes."

Such is the gift of Isabel and writers like her, who at times coax, others grab you by the neck and submerge you in their world. Allende's voice is lyrical, she weaves spells you are happy to be under, the most mundane story in her hands is epic.

So even if I DID spend two of my beauty sleep hours reading "Sum," I didn't finish it. I want to treat myself to more, reading it piecemeal if I could, to make the pleasure last longer. I've read "Paula" several times, "House of the Spirits" and "Portrait in Sepia," more than twice, and that's saying a lot for this mom of two who is forever chasing time.

Isabel Allende was at All Saints Church in Pasadena on April 3, but I couldn't go. It would have been a thrill to see and meet her, have her sign my book, but it's also just fine to just read her. She's real enough from her books. So I give her a hug as wide as the ocean, with deep gratitude for her sharing her gift.

Spending time with her is worth losing sleep over.
Thanks, Isabel.

    Sandro and I met an old man at the car wash today. He had brought his little Shitzu with him, a 4-year-old named Happy, so of course we had to admire the little fellow. Turns out the old man was a missionary in Thailand for 18 years, raised five kids there, adopted a Korean boy, before returning to CA. The Korean-born son married a Filipina and he remembers attending their wedding in Manila and seeing a sign that read, "Antiques made to order." He had a good laugh about that. A couple of his kids are missionaries too, with one even bringing a granddaughter along on a return trip to Thailand.
    The old man's car was a nondescript light blue Buick, he was neatly dressed but not too natty, but he looked as happy as could be waiting there at the car wash, like he didn't have a care in the world.